Sharks goalie Antti Niemi rebounded from a couple of rough outings to make 29 saves on Saturday night, but he was still saddled with a loss as San Jose provided only one goal of support during a 3-1 loss to the New York Rangers at sold-out SAP Center. To view a photo album of the game, visit our Facebook Page shortly and be sure to LIKE us. Photo by Kenneth Wong.

With Sharks forwards James Sheppard (15) and Tommy Wingels (57) ready to pounce, Rangers defenseman Kevin Klein (8) made sure goalie Henrik Lundqvist didn't permit a rebound. The New York netminder stopped 30 of 31 shots to win for the 20th time. Lundqvist is the first goalie in league history to win at least 20 games in each of his first 10 NHL seasons. To view a photo album of the game, visit our Facebook Page shortly and be sure to LIKE us. Photo by Kenneth Wong.

Oregon running back Royce Freeman (21) rumbles up the middle of the Arizona defense in the rain during the Pac-12 championship game on Dec. 5 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. The No. 2-ranked Oregon Ducks routed Arizona 51-13, and then routed the No. 3-ranked Florida State Seminoles 59-20 in the Rose Bowl Game on Jan. 1 for the right to play the No. 4-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes in the national championship game on Jan. 12 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The game will be carried live by ESPN with the kickoff at 5:30 p.m. PDT.

The Harlem Globetrotters delighted their fans at Oracle Arena on Jan. 10 with hilarious antics and amazing basketball skills. The Globetrotters return to Oracle Jan. 17, at 7:30 p.m. South Bay fans will also have an opportunity to see a dazzling display of athleticism, theater and comedy with performances Jan. 16 and 17 at the SAP Center at San Jose. For more information, visit Globetrotters.com. To view a photo album of their performance, visit our Facebook Page and be sure to LIKE us.

Members of the Black Hole gather prior to theRaiders-Bills game in Oakland on Dec. 21 and display their favorite sports reading material! To view a photo album of the game, visit ourFacebook Page and be sure to LIKE us.

Have an upcoming special event or festival and would like a sensational handout? Copies of the Ultimate Sports Guide are available at NO charge for special occasions, such as basketball tournaments, sports camps, fairs, exhibitions, games, coaching clinics, openings, etc. If you need 25, 50, 100 or more free copies for your fans or participants, write: theultimatesportsguide@gmail or call (510) 845-2035.

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"These are my new shoes. They're good shoes.

They won't make you rich like me, they won't make you rebound like me, they definitely won't make you handsome like me. They'll only make you have shoes like me. That's it."

At its 15th annual Bay Area induction ceremony, the Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame (MESHOF) will induct Chris Speier, baseball; Tommy Hart, football; Jim Otto, football; coach Darren Arbet, football; Carney Lansford, baseball; coach John Beam, football; and Warren Edmondson, track and field. The event will be held at the Waterfront Hotel, Jack London Square, in Oakland on Feb. 6 from 6 to 10 p.m.

MESHOF will also honor the following outstanding community leaders with special awards at the event: Dr. J. Alfred Smith Sr. Humanitarian Award; California Waste Solutions, Sense of Community Award; Oakland Pride, Community Advocate Award; coach Jethro McIntyre, Outstanding Coaching Award; Ron McClain, Community Support Award; and Harper for Kids, Youth Advocate Award.

The no-host cocktail hour begins at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7p.m. and the ceremony at 8 p.m. Tickets are $100 for dinner and ceremony. Tables of 10 are also available, as are community partner sponsorship opportunities. For tickets and more information, visit afrosportshall.com.

Reader comments on the 2014 Spring/Summer

Ultimate Sports Guide

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McKinleyville, Calif.

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There are 390 days left until the Golden Super Bowl at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara,

on Feb. 7, 2016.

SportsPulse

Andy Dolich:

Unparalleled appreciation

Andy Dolich (left) with Garth Webster of the Memphis Grizzlies and a225-pound yellowfin tuna caught off the Louisiana coast in September 2012.Photo by guide Hunter Caballero.

Bluefin tuna primer

by Andy Dolich

There are 1,645 billionaires in the world, including 540 Americans, give or take a few, based on today's bank balances.

There are 122 franchises in the Big Four sports leagues, with several always on the market. The Sterlings became billionaires when the L.A. Clippers deal with Steve Ballmer closed for $2.1 billion. The Buffalo Bills were sold for $1.1 billion to the Pegula Family in 2014. The late Ralph Wilson paid $25,000 in 1959 as the Bills' original owner of the then AFL. His investment yielded a skyscraping stack of cash adding up to more zeroes than he or his family could ever have imagined.

Walter O'Malley bought controlling interest in the Brooklyn Dodgers for $346,000 in 1950. His son Peter sold the Los Angeles Dodgers to News Corp. for a reported $350 million in 1998. News Corp then sold to Frank McCourt for $420 million in 2004. Staring at baseball bankruptcy, McCourt sold the team to a group led by Mark Walter of Guggenheim Partners for a record $2.15 billion in 2012. This transaction sent shock waves through the world of franchise commerce.

There are many types of appreciation in sports. We have our favorite players, teams, great moments, broadcasters and leagues. The most important appreciation is the bottom-line explosion exemplified by the skyrocketing value of sports franchises.

After speaking with several sages in the world of franchise transactions, I have gathered that there are three significant market forces fueling the engine for these eye-popping deals.

1. Media values. They continue to increase the competition for sports content. Just wait until the global tech giants start to appreciate the attraction that sports franchises have for an expanding global audience's hearts, minds, credit cards and mobile devices. The hardware suppliers will always require fresh software. The software of sports is year round and globally sound.

2. Low interest rates. Money is close to free, and those that deal with it without fear are riding high in many business acquisition sectors, including sports. The billion dollar barrier has been cleared, and we will continue to see buy-and-sell figures that don't seem to make bottom-line sense.

3. Wealth creation. Not just in the United States but across the world, business innovation and increases in productivity are key drivers. Do the math. More money means more buyers for sellers who can realize levels of ROI (return on investment) that are OTM (over the moon).

Luxury collectibles are now considered intelligent investments for significant appreciation. Jewelry, antique cars, artwork, coins and stamps are selling at record prices. Classic cars have had a 10-year price change of 430 percent appreciation. Rare stamps and coins are up by 225 percent. What could be more luxurious than buying a professional sports franchise?

The late actress Elizabeth Taylor amassed an astounding collection of jewels and husbands over her lifetime. Her legendary collection was sold in December 2011 for a staggering $156.8 million.

If you think all of these stratospheric prices seem fishy, a Japanese restaurateur paid $1.76 million for a 488-pound bluefin tuna at auction in Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market. That's around $3,600 a pound. Sushi this!

Sports franchise appreciation is the gift that keeps on giving, and our collective jaws will continue to drop as the prices keep rising in 2015 and beyond.

Longtime sports executive Andy Dolich has more than three decades of experience in the professional sports industry, mostly spent in the San Francisco Bay Area. This includes stints in the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. He operates his consulting business, Dolich & Associates, in Los Altos.

Send us your Memorable Sports Moment or SportsPulse and we will share them with our readers. Write: theultimatesportsguide@gmail.com.

Memorable Sports Moment

Ross McKeon on Randy Johnson

Johnson picked up his 300th win wearing a San Francisco Giants uniform against the Washington Nationals on June 4, 2009.

Randy Johnson signing Cameron McKeon's Montreal Expo cap.

Randy Johnson:

Local boy makes good

Ross McKeon

My first exposure to arguably the best left-handed pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball was not on the diamond but rather on a basketball court. Randy Johnson was a dominating center at Livermore High School.

He stood head and shoulders above his teammates -- and every opponent he faced, as well. The game came easy because that's what happens when near 7-footers are competing against 6-footers.

During the late 1970s and early '80s, I covered prep sports in the East Bay's Tri-Valley, an area fertile with top-notch high school athletes competing in the eight-school East Bay Athletic League.

Times were different then. Two chains of local newspapers routinely chronicled youth sports, highlighted by daily action on high school campuses spanning Alamo to the north and Livermore to the south. I worked for the Valley Times, which focused on Pleasanton and Livermore. The Times competed on a daily basis with the Tri-Valley Herald, which also concentrated on Livermore and Pleasanton.

The first time I covered Johnson was during the winter of his junior year, when he was a member of the Livermore varsity basketball team. Johnson averaged better than 20 points a game. He didn't have a big shot, but standing 6 foot 9, he didn't need one. Johnson simply stood under or to the side of the basket, gobbled up one offensive rebound after another and knocked down layups until the cows came home -- and in Livermore, there were plenty of cows in those days.

I also covered a few of Johnson's varsity baseball games, both his junior and senior seasons. He stood out, all right. Johnson was as tall as he was rail thin. He was quite the sight, standing on what looked like an ant hill on a dusty, pocked, windy field that made up Livermore's varsity diamond back in the day.

Johnson was the show during his senior baseball season, and he drew curious observers every time he pitched. The funny thing was, the Cowboys were nothing more than a .500 team in EBAL play in 1982. Johnson threw hard and even pitched a perfect game in his last high school outing. But there were teams, including San Ramon, Monte Vista and California High School, that enjoyed more success because of more talented supporting casts.

Still, you knew Johnson was special. When he delivered a pitch, it looked like he was handing the ball to the catcher. Batters were intimidated. Johnson threw very hard and didn't always know where it was going. You heard his pitches as much as you could see them.

Johnson went on to USC, where he played basketball two more seasons before turning to baseball full time. He was a teammate of Mark McGwire's and played for legendary Trojans coach Rod Dedeaux before embarking on a 22-year MLB career.

You know the story: 303 wins, a lefty-best 4,875 strikeouts, five Cy Young awards (including four in a row), a perfect game and a no-hitter, 10 All-Star appearances, a World Series co-MVP -- all capped last week by election to the Hall of Fame with 97.3 percent of the vote on his first ballot.

Johnson became big-time a long time ago, but he wasn't too big to return to his roots in 2009, when along with the San Francisco Giants -- his sixth and final MLB team -- Johnson returned to Livermore to dedicate a new youth baseball diamond.

My son Cameron, 9 years old at the time, was lucky enough to snag an autograph on a Montreal Expos hat from Johnson that day. A left-hander as well, my son gleaned some good karma from Johnson, and two years later he tossed a perfect game of his own in Little League.

It was from humble beginnings that the Big Unit got his start in baseball. And from what I could tell, seeing him again nearly 30 years later on that hot August morning in Livermore, the future Hall of Famer hadn't changed much.

Ross McKeon, a Bay Area sports journalist since 1978, has covered the San Jose Sharks and the National Hockey League for 24 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Yahoo Sports. He grew up in Danville and graduated from Cal State Hayward. His radio, TV and print work spans high school, college and pro sports. Follow on Twitter@rossmckeon.

Send us your Memorable Sports Moment or SportsPulse and we will share them with our readers. Write: theultimatesportsguide@gmail.com.

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